A WELL loved local family man is being remembered for his iconic ‘counter-cultural’ role as dad.

James MacMillan Senior was a pillar in his local community and is now being celebrated for helping ‘rediscover the role of a Scottish working class father’.

Before passing away last month James married Ellen Loy in 1958 and had three children, seven grandchildren, and even a great grandson.

He worked as a joiner and brought up his family in the Ochiltree and Cumnock during the 1960s and 70s.

Now his son a classical composer, James junior, is looking back at his dad’s life and realising how his example was so valuable in learning what it takes to be a dad.

He said: “I know he is remembered by many in Cumnock, Ochiltree and the surrounding area.

“They will remember him as a quiet, thoughtful and sensitive man, who rejoiced in the the company of his family.

“One of my earliest memories of him is observing him on his knees before a statue of Mary in St John’s church in Glaisnock Street, lost in a distant humble introspection.

“I was always struck and impressed by how much care my dad took in the making of things. “There were strict techniques to his craft which had taken many years to learn.

“There was no place for fanciful self-indulgences in the manipulation of wood and lathe.

“His own work as a joiner seemed a world away from my work as a composer and musician.

“Although I may use different tools and materials from my dad, he had a huge influence on me, something he never really knew.

“An influence on making music, and on being a father.

“It's only beginning to dawn on me just how iconically counter-cultural people like my dad might become for present and future generations.

“Their inevitable route through a Scottish working-class manhood, with their pivotal roles as husbands and fathers, must have struck them as fairly mundane and mainstream in their day.

“The upheavals and disruptions of recent decades have made many of us look again at their taken-for-granted lives, with a strong sense of wistfulness and loss.

“Rediscovering the role of the father in our modern society seems an urgent task - not as some emotionally remote, powerful patriarch, but as a patient enabler.

“The first of his tasks is to give space to the beloved, the mother, to build her nest of love. “Sometimes, these days it feels like an historical breach has taken place, making it more difficult to facilitate this.

“It may require hard work in building the ideal vision of fatherhood again.

“I feel blessed in having had a father who put his wife and children at the centre of his life. “His humility, patience, self-deprecating humour and respectful manners put people at their ease, family, friends and strangers.

“The family have warm memories of his role and influence in our lives. We will miss him.”